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Rust proofing question! I've heard great things about ACF-50 rust proofing stuff. Supposedly it can even be used on hot exhaust parts. Can you use it on chromed parts? The exhaust of my SV is slowly starting to show some rust and pitting, and i kinda wanna keep it nice and shiny. But i don't wanna have a caked on layer of wax or something that is super hard to remove after winter.
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Dec 12, 2020 22:31
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I have Michelin Pilot Road 3/4 on my SV650, and i think i'm gonna switch to a different brand as soon as these are worn out. While they indeed offer great traction in the rain, i also recognize that my bike is less flickable than most other bikes i've tried, and i'm starting to wonder if it's the tires. It's a light bike with a good chassis, or so they say... The PR is very forgiving. It's easy to feel when you're pushing them too hard, and so far i've never come close to a crash in such cases. Also, despite most roads being straight as an arrow here, they wear out nice and evenly. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Mar 16, 2021 |
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Mar 16, 2021 22:42
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Steakandchips posted:
Can't say much about the others, but i found SV's more exciting to ride than the Ducati Monster 797. The Ducati is quite comfortable and really a good bike, but although it's faster than my old SV, it feels slower. The Duc engine isn't as rev happy - just linearly releasing the power over the whole range. Both bikes can be lugged, but the SV's have a bit more of a peak in power at high revs. Both bikes are perfectly happy riding quietly through towns at 2500-4000rpm, and rolling stops can be done from about 1500rpm withouth bucking if you're gentle. The newest SV is quite tiny and feels very zippy, i suspect the Ducati would probably be more comfortable and relaxing on longer trips. Its tiny wind deflector on the headlamp works suprisingly well. The Duc will corner as on rails with a ton of confidence but iirc it just felt less engaging. So yeah. Both good bikes. Probably just a matter of taste and money which one is best suited for you. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2021 11:01
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Enjoy! Just keep an eye on the speedometer. My first electric ride ended with me spending 80% of the time well above the speed limit, because it takes a lot of getting used to the lack of drama.
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Mar 25, 2021 14:38
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Engine braking is perfectly fine for 4 stroke engines. Just conciously rev match, don't slip the clutch too much to make down changes smooth. On premix two strokes it's a different story. Those don't get the amount of oil needed for a specific rpm, if the engine is spinning but the throttle closed. Modern ones may be different but 2 stroke doesn't engine brake much anyway, or so i've heard.
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May 30, 2021 08:30
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A tiny spark when connecting something can be completely normal. There often are big capacitors on the various electronics that draw a rather large charging current if they're empty and connected to the battery. In the case of an immobilizer, they may always be live. Otherwise, if the ignition was on while connecting it, you are probably seeing the other stuff's capacitors charge.
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Jun 2, 2021 14:37
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Does it have 4 coils? Or 1 coil and a distributor? In any case - run it for 30 seconds (stop it before the 4th cylinder starts to fire). Check which exhaust header stays cold. Then on that cylinder, swap the spark plug and lead (and if possible the coil) with one of the neighboring ones. Don't just cross the leads, that won't work because of the firing order. Let exhaust cool completely. Then re-start, and see if the same cylinder/exhaust stays cool. If yes, then the problem is with the cylinder/carb/the thing that sends the volts to the tingletron that makes the electrons extra angry. If the problem moves to another cylinder, then one of the parts you moved causes the problem.
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Jun 4, 2021 16:33
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What you are describing is something called 'negative resistance', which you only see in stuff like gas discharge tubes (neon, fluorescent), welding arcs and tunnel/gunn diodes, and indeed switching power supplies that are designed to do that. Above a certain threshold, voltage goes up, current goes down. Voltage goes down, current goes up. Motors do *not* have negative resistance, they have conventional resistance. Voltage goes down, current goes down. The major risk is burning out the starter motor due to stalling it, or cranking it almost stalled. Regardless of the voltage, a stalled motor almost equals a short circuit. A weak battery makes it more likely that you (almost) stall the motor cause it can't deliver the power needed to crank the engine, and with an (almost) stalled motor there can flow enough current to fry the windings. A stalled motor still adheres to ohm's law (voltage down, current down - voltage up, current up). But the risk of running the starter motor too close to stalling, is simply lower with a fully charged battery. To fry your starter motor (or other bits in that circuit) with a weak battery you gotta be particularly stupid to keep attempting to start while it's already clear that it isn't gonna start. In any case, take a look at older DC electric locomotives. They control their speed with yuge banks of resistors to lower the voltage to the traction motors. I guarantee you that with lower voltage, the current also lowers. And those motors are of the same type as starter motors (but meant for continuous use) LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jun 24, 2021 |
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Jun 24, 2021 19:09
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Central to the whole thing is the (almost) stalling of the starter motor. If you *don't stall* it with a weak battery, there is less current flowing than with a good battery. If you do (almost) stall it, with a weak battery (and there's a greater risk of that with a weak one) there will be less current flowing than with a good battery. The main point of attention is that there's a higher risk of stalling the starter motor, or almost stalling it, which makes the current skyrocket. The skyrocketing current is the cause of the dropping voltage, not the consequence of it. I actually have a lab model of this stuff at work. Perhaps some day i'll make a video about it. That said, HAAAAALP! I know lots about electronics, but haven't ever touched brakes myself. On my 1993 fzr600 3he there are better, newer brakes fitted. Either GSXR brake pump/lever and R6 calipers, or the other way round. This worked very very well with the aftermarket higher mounted sumo-like bars. Considerably nicer than my SV650's brakes. However, i've put back some original clipons. Now i've discovered that A. the hose and fittings pretty much jam against the fork and B. the lever might bump into the frame that carries the fairing, or the fairing itself (it was sawn off at the tape, will kinda extend in the direction of the gray lines, i've already bought an original subframe). So i most likely have to buy a new brake lever/pump. How do i find out if the original FZR600 brake lever and pump are suitable for the brake calipers that are fitted to the bike? I prefer to keep those, because the whole front brake setup feels really quite nice. It also looks like i could just flip the metal part where the brake pump connects to the rubber hose. Is that part flippable? [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/590236456942043136/857714838541565962/unknown.png[img]
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Jun 24, 2021 21:47
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So far i've only ridden the bike with the aftermarket, extra wide, higher mounted handle bars. The brake lever was approximately in this position when i was riding it: But since i'm gonna mount the fairing back onto the bike, i needed the original handle bars. It seems like i could actually remove, or rotate this piece of pipe. Still no idea if the whole thing would clear the fairing, but worth a try i guess. Though i think i still gotta make the brake line a bit shorter.  The calipers have pretty purple things on them, so i guess the brake pump is GSXR and the calipers are R6.
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Jun 25, 2021 13:34
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Now the gremlins are back again, and hooking a multimeter up reveals some extreme weirdness - voltage shows 12.5-12.6 key off, but drops to 9-10(!) with key on. If I turn it on and off a few times it eventually shows 12.5 again and starts fine, if sluggishly. Hooking up the Optimate and it only manages to get the voltage up to 12.9 or so instead of the >13.5 I'd expect when charging - so somewhere I've got a slow voltage puncture. Same response with the old battery (both OEM Yuasa). Firstly, get some of these:  So much easier to just clip them something while you operate various switches, rather than holding them onto a contact. You can also use one clip lead to clip to the battery negative, one standard test lead to poke around. We gotta establish what is causing the voltage to sag. Did you measure the 9 or 10v right on the battery terminals themselves? Because if that's the case you have two options; - The battery is already hosed. Pull it out, charge it normally, and take it to a shop to get it tested under load. - Something is drawing such a huge current that it pulls the battery voltage down. If it sags to 9-10v with a good battery, it's 'starter motor' levels of current. That's bad, it can very easily make things go all melty and burny. You should be able to feel the wires heat up with ease. If this is the case, then make this tool: a rear light bulb connected across the terminals of a blown or cut fuse, like this:  If it burns dimly, there's not much current draw. That should be the case when stuff like the lights are turned off, but the ECU/instruments/panel lights are running. If it lights up full strength, something draws a lot of current. The key to finding intermittent short circuits, is to hook up one of those light bulb fuse replacement things, and then tug and push the wiring loom and electronic parts, until you see the light bulb suddenly shine brightly. Then you've found a place where the wiring loom shorts out. You gotta do this for each fused circuit. You can totally do this with a multimeter, but i found the lightbulb method to just be easier cause you don't need to look at the display, just see when the bulb lights brighter. Pop the 'fuse' in place, and see what it does. Use a front light bulb for high amperage circuits. Of course you can also pull fuses and see when the voltage drop disappears, but then you still gotta see where exactly on the circuit there's a short. If you have measured that 9 or 10v further downstream like after the ignition switch, then there is likely not a short circuit but a bad connection. Personally, i like to use an analog multimeter in this case. Measure on which bits you measure the low voltage, and on which bits you measure the normal voltage. Start at the battery, follow the wires to the fuse box, measure before and after a fuse, follow the wire to someting further downstream etc etc. Between those, there's a bad connection. Again, tug, push and poke wiring and connectors and see on the meter if the voltage suddenly jumps up. To find bad connections, it helps to turn on some power consuming things. Re: my brake stuff Thanks! Very informative. I'll first see if rotating helps enough, though i don't have a ton of hope. Perhaps i can make it work just good enough to safely take it to a ratty little shop that has a bunch of 80s/90s bikes sitting in front of it. I sorta expect that guy to see it and say 'Oh yeah, this'un is gonna fit!' If i gotta cock my wrist in a weird angle for the 5km i live from that place, that's alright. Or perhaps i should give him a call first and see if he has a random collection of brake stuff i can try out... LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jun 25, 2021 |
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Jun 25, 2021 20:17
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Interesting thought on the fuse tester - presumably a multimeter in amps mode wired into an old fuse would be a handy compromise (weirdly I don't actually have any old lamps, just a bunch of random LEDs, but I do have a collection of multimeters and test leads of a multitude of styles and as the fuse box is nice and easy to access I'd rather do it that way anyway). You can definitely also do it with a multimeter. However, keep in mind that many meters have an unfused 10 or 20 amp range, so if something goes wrong you are not protected by anything. The light bulb serves as an effective current limiter. This also works very well when repairing old electronics such as hifi amplifiers and tube radios. In those cases, it prevents blown output transistors and burnt out power transformers
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Jun 25, 2021 22:36
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I just love quickshifters. On the SMC-R it worked brilliantly, both up and down. The only thing that messed with me, was that the slightest pressure on the gear lever resulted in a short cut or boost of power. So i'd get ready to shift down and put slight pressure on the shifter, not knowing the quickshifter worked both ways, and get a surge of power... The Duke 890r i rode oddly had no quickshifter (or it was turned off, idk, my own bikes are decades old and DIGITAL IGNITION is the most high tech thing on them) but it took a few jolty shifts before i realized 'oh, this thing will just click into the next gear under light load and doesn't have a quickshifter'.
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Jul 11, 2021 10:51
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They don't typically smoothly keep spinning after you spin the shaft with your fingers, but you should be able to turn it quite effortlessly. They're brushed motors, some smooth friction (if that makes any sense) is normal.
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Jul 12, 2021 20:26
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SEKCobra posted:Any microcontroller-based charger shouldn't mind it though, as they have appropriate protective circuitry. It will just not really do anything when you start cranking. On the one side, this is correct and all chargers (including old buzz boxes) have some form of current limiting. On the other hand, a starter motor is a massive inductive load that causes big voltage spikes when you let go of the starter button. This usually doesn't, but can conceivably damage a charger. I've done it with old skool chargers without issues, but YMMV. I did gently caress up a CB radio power supply once by backfeeding it some voltage from another source.
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Nov 1, 2021 09:38
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Invalido posted:Or you can use alligator clips of suitable size (this is what I would do for a once-off), Big word of caution: pre made alligator clip leads often are made with copper clad steel wire, that are poorly "crimped" (more like squished against its own isolation) onto the clips. Those are genuinely useless and dangerous because at just 1 ampere they will heat up, and at a handful they'll melt and burn. Often the poor crimp means they go open circuit before they burn, but be careful. If you get them, try two things: 1. Get a strong magnet and see if the wire is attracted by the magnet. 2. Pull back the little insulating sleeve of the clip, and see if the leads are soldered. I can't imagine life without clip leads, but i just buy a bunch of clips and then solder those to nice bits of computer PSU wire myself. If space and safety (as in 'it won't short out against a biek part) allows, you can also use these instead of the connectors that now attach to the battery, and use another pair of standard faston connectors on the charger cable: 
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Nov 13, 2021 23:47
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No idea how this translates to other electric bikes, but i noticed that on the Cake, the regen braking was strong enough to make the rear brake pedal essentially useless at medium to high speeds. Touching the brake pedal while also using the front brake would result quite quickly in a locked up rear wheel (no ABS). So if your regen braking is aggressive, you can go without using the rear brake. Figure it out by seeing how much brake pedal you can add before the rear locks up or ABS engages.
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Jan 2, 2022 21:36
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Makes me think of the Vector W8 dashboard:  I got a 1987 Toshiba laptop with one of those neon plasma displays, i'd love to have one of those for telemetry purposes set up somewhere. It's super awesome! LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Jan 12, 2022 |
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Jan 12, 2022 10:18
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My FZR600 has an intermittently sticking rear brake. What should i do? Is it a good idea to start by just taking off the calipers, removing the pads and lubricating all of the slidey bits, or should i go further and remove the pistons too? I don't know a lot about the history of the brake, but the brake lines have been replaced a few years ago.
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Jan 27, 2022 20:17
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Just get a Yuasa. There are probably better batteries out there but there are also definitely worse, and there's a reason basically every manufacturer specifies Yuasa as OEM. Agreed. Yuasa is good stuff. I have a more than 10 year old UPS 7ah 12v backup battery from them in use for any job where i need mobile 12v, and although it probably has lost some capacity, it's aging incredibly gracefully, still able to handle decent peak currents from whatever mobile 12v thing i'm hooking up to it.
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Feb 7, 2022 16:53
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Yeah. You can indeed just wear your suit. Saves you a lot of luggage space. You wouldn't be the first guy flying in motorcycle gear. Perhaps take out the protectors if they make it uncomfortable.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:15
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Re: active noice canceling In theory it's every bit as good as passive protection. The way it works is that the incoming sound directly to your ear is let's say 'plus one' above ambient air pressure. The headphones notice that sound and generate an equal, precisely timed 'minus one'. The resulting air pressure within the ear should be zero. This is all theory, though, and it definitely warrants proper scientific study. Perhaps ask around in the airplane threads how the pilots experience active noice canceling headsets. There are a lot of private pilots with tinnitus afaik. Also a lot of them with active noice canceling. As for me, i've always had it. As a kid, sometimes it was much worse than it is now, sorta sounding like church bells but it was like the Dinggggg's without the DI! sound. So a constant, fairly low multitone NGGGGGGGGG. Right now it's very similar to the old school CRT whistle. It gets worse after a hard day of work or after exercise. Riding my bike hasn't made it worse. My SV is quiet enough (with its original exhaust) to be able to ride in the city without any influence on my tinnitus whatsoever. However, the FZR's mechanical bits are a lot louder and even in the city it's too much noise for me. Highway riding (or riding in high winds) is a different beast. Even with very strongly attenuating foam plugs i still have more tinnitus than normal after a long highway ride. Goes away after half an hour, but i fear there will be a day that it won't.
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Mar 22, 2022 17:12
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Pour some in a shot glass. If it looks like a good whisky, then it's bad. If it looks straw/pale yellow, it's good. I just bought some fresh stuff. My Suzuki's front brake fluid is turning orange and that means it's probably well overdue for a change, though it only took 2 years to reach that color.
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Mar 26, 2022 17:59
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Ah yeah, the .1 in 5.1 is apparently a big difference.
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Mar 26, 2022 21:59
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I don't know much about bike voltage regulators, but i do know quite a bit about batteries. If your battery voltage drops to 12,5v with the engine running, something is either wrong or heavily overloaded. AFAIK most bikes run shunt regulators. So all voltage above about 14,4v is just shorted to ground. Which means you can essentially do as Slavvy says and add load until your voltage drops too far. Do NOT do that with any other type of alternator. A car alternator has a 'proper' field regulator, and it'll just burn out if you try and max it out. A lead acid battery is best charged at 14,4v and best kept charged at 13,8v. I would tolerate 13,5v under normal operating conditions but nothing less than that. Consequences of too low charge voltage: My SV had a lovely regulator that was barely able to get the voltage to 13,5 when running with no load, dropping to 12,5 with a lot of load or on hot days, and that really had a bad effect on how easy the bike was to start. Because in general it starts on the first try it was not that noticeable on normal days and i kept riding with it for a long time before measuring the voltage. But in winter i had many occasions i had to first hook it up to the charger before i could get it charged, and if i'd stop on a hot summer day it would later crank pretty slowly, sometimes even stall while cranking. New japanese mosfet regulator and all my cold start/very hot start issues are gone. Measuring the current that your alternator delivers doesn't give you the information you need (unless you know the exact amount of current you are allowed to draw). You want to know if your battery is charging, and if your battery voltage is good. As Slavvy said, putting a multimeter in series with your battery cable isn't a great idea, it's easy to overload the meter. It can definitely not handle the current the starting motor draws, and accidentally removing the battery from the circuit while the engine is running can lead to nasty voltage spikes. A clamp meter can tell you how much current is drawn if you wanna know out of curiosity, but pay attention that it is suitable for direct current. Most of the ones below $50 can only do alternating current. I haven't yet figured out if a DC clamp meter can also sense current direction. Probably it can. If it can, then it would tell you not only the current that's flowing but also whether the battery is charging or discharging. Here's the cheapest one (at an european retailer, didn't look at direct china import) i could find (within 5 minutes) that can measure DC: https://www.conrad.nl/nl/p/voltcraft-vc-330-stroomtang-digitaal-cat-ii-600-v-cat-iii-300-v-weergave-counts-2000-1307544.html LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Apr 12, 2022 |
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Apr 12, 2022 20:46
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So does anyone know anything about the 4 cyl Kawa ninja 250, and whether there is a realistic chance that it will be sold in the EU? I would genuinely consider buying one. Even more so if they turn it into a 400 variant like some random rumour spreaders on the internet suggested. But i wanna know, is Kawa considering making them Euro 5 compliant and selling them here, or are they like 'whatever, just buy our 2 cylinder smolbikes' ?
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Apr 14, 2022 12:38
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Check voltage drop. If you measure 13,5v on the battery, but 12v on the pigtail, then you lose 1,5v on the way there. If for convenience's sake we assume you're drawing 10 amps, it means you are generating 15w of heat somewhere. When spread over a long stretch of wire, that poses no risk. Not great, not terrible. But if that 1,5v is eaten up in a connector somewhere, it can easily get to melty burny hot temperatures.
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Apr 17, 2022 11:53
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That's so true. The first time i rode at a 'slightly' higher than legal speed, it was kind of a revelation that i could relax and let the wind support me.
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Apr 25, 2022 12:11
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Sooo i just replaced the rear brake caliper seals on my FZR600. It appears that the brakes aren't dragging anymore, great! If i pull the bike onto the kickstand and give the wheel a kick, it doesn't immediately stop rotating anymore. I just feel the normal chain/transmission drag. I bled the brakes. Pumping the pedal, opening the bleed nipple, close, release pedal. Rinse and repeat, same for both brake cylinders. Add fluid as needed. When no more air was coming out, i went for a test ride. While i can still lock the rear brake by going apeshit on the pedal, i have to push in the pedal really far to get any kind of braking action. The first 50 percent of travel does nothing. The last seems to work fairly okay. When i press the brake until there's good braking action, the pedal doesn't sink. One thing i didn't find on my brake, but which is mentioned in the shop manual, are shims between the pistons and the brake pads. Are they essential? It actually kinda looks like in my case they would make sense, because the travel of the pedal is simply too big. Is there any other bleed point that i gotta do? Is there anything else that can go wrong? LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 18:17 on May 2, 2022 |
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May 2, 2022 18:15
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The pads are the old ones. Didn't replace them yet. They still have a couple millimeter to go till the wear mark. I will try the MC banjo tomorrow (and the caliper again, just to be sure) and report back. I don't know a whole lot about brakes, i'm more of an electronics guy. It's a small miracle i'm actually doing this 
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May 2, 2022 19:55
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Alright, i just rode through the city for a bit. Dropped by the motorcycle garage that deals with vintage bikes (they had a very droolworthy Ducati Darmah in the shop). I asked for their judgment, and they used the vacuum bleeder on it. Long pedal stroke remains, but the 'bottom' of the pedal got just a bit firmer. Small but noticeable improvement. Didn't have to pay anything But now the rear brake disk, after going 80km/h for about 2km, went from 'cat in the sunshine warm' before they bled the brakes, to 'i can press my hand against it for exactly 3 seconds before having to let go' hot. Wh... How does that even make sense. It doesn't to me. Something's hosed, but not enough to start leaking, smoking or to stop working. The worst kind of hosed. Bike can still be pushed around by hand without too much effort, but still it's not as friction free as it can be, i suspect. It's definitely improvement over the situation before replacing the seals, because earlier the disk got 'instant burn' hot from a short trip on a 50km/h road. I quickly learned to first hold the back of my hand near the disk to feel for any heat radiation, before very quickly touching it. The shop mechanic (type 'Old curmudgeon', "Well, i'm waiting for parts anyway so i guess i'll do it for you") didn't think there's anything wrong with the main cylinder and that at least the pedal feel is as good as it will ever be. I reckon i'll shove some fresh pads in there and see what happens. Perhaps somehow part of the pistons are hosed in a way i don't recognize and making them work on a different part, makes the problem disappear. But honestly, they look totally fine to me. Only some marks on the part that sticks out past the dust seal, nothing on the bit that is inside of the cylinder. If i win the Kawa ninja 650 from the raffle i entered, or find an Kawasuzonda 3 Letters 400 before i fix this, the poor FZR 600 will probably be sent off to the next guy. Don't worry, i'll not allow it to be scrapped. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 14:44 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 14:30
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There is a flat sort of spring clip that hooks behind those pins that pushes down on the pads. That definitely causes the pads to experience friction VS the pins. I don't know why that clip is actually there tbh, but i'm sure the engineers had a reason for it. The pins are totally dry now, i cleaned them with brake cleaner to get rid of old gunk and dust before reinstalling. I'll see what happens if i give them a light coat (as in 'it won't ever drip off, not even if the brakes get hot') of bearing grease. If that makes things better, i'll buy some copper grease or whatever is good for high temperature environments. I didn't lube anything during this job, i only coated the pistons and seals in brake fluid when installing those. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 22:38 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 22:35
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Bike's barely being ridden at the moment (read: my tripcounter says 30 miles since i last topped up the fuel in the middle of winter) for obvious reasons. The SV is chugging along nicely Using copper grease is something pretty old afaik. It wasn't applied to the brake pad back plates and i didn't have any problems with squeal, so i didn't bother with it. I have found it somewhere on the bike: on the valve stem of the front wheel, which has a metal valve cap. Odd. E: it appears to have fixed itself overnight. I was gonna get the pads out to give the plates a good scrub. But i kicked the tire, and it spun freely. To be sure, i tried bleeding the brakes again. One or two tiny bubbles still came out. Took it onto a rural road, got it properly hot, kicked it, spun freely. Rode home over a short stretch of highway, felt the disk after getting home, it's now back to 'cat in the sun warm', i estimate 40 deg C, easy to move around, and still spins freely. This feels totally normal to me. The pedal feel down low feels rock hard, couldn't push it to the end of the stroke if i wanted to. The fairly long 'dead zone' remains. But the (tiny) bubbles still coming out make me believe that there is still some air in the system. There's a part of the brake hose that runs in an arch, i'll unclip it to try and coax any trapped air bubbles, just in case the vacuum brake bleeder at the garage didn't catch those. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 13:00 on May 5, 2022 |
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May 5, 2022 09:23
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX7lW5EW1wk Video showing how much (or little) the brake still drags. But also the free stroke in the pedal. The wet stuff is just water. I scrubbed the sides of the backing plates with some steel wool and cleaned some dirt out of the caliper, because again it got hot on a test ride this morning. When i got it to about 80ish degrees by normal use, it just didn't wanna cool off anymore despite not using it. But now (after cleaning, see video) it seems to act pretty normal. With the cover off, i can see the top of the pads move a fraction of a millimeter. There's one thing that irks me, the pistons are very hard to push back. I pushed on them with one bleed nipple open, and i can squeeze some liquid out of the nipple, but i can't seem to really move the piston by hand. I'll try again tomorrow i guess. I'm starting to think about just buying a new master cylinder and caliper. But lol, the parts i'd get would also be 30 years old with potentially similar problems. I thought about trying to bleed again with a different brake line routing, but turns out the brake hose is inside a loop that doesn't have an open bit. So i can't take the 'hump' out of the brake hose without removing the whole line from the system. Is it worth the effort? LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 15:35 on May 6, 2022 |
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May 6, 2022 15:24
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The reason why i write a lot, is because i can't always judge which information is relevant in a system that i'm not well acqainted with. For instance, should i bother with writing down that when i was cleaning the cylinders, i noticed some black tarnishing in the grooves where the seals go? I wouldn't think so. It's not a thick layer of corrosion and it does't contact the piston. No brake fluid is creeping past the seals. But perhaps i don't realize how tight/critical the tolerances are and it actually is important so i write it down anyway. I didn't touch the master cylinder because that's not gonna be the problem, i'm told. So far i only replaced the seals in the caliper, cleaned everything very well, and bled the air out of the system, after which it was fine for a bit. Then i went to the garage to ask for their opinion on pedal travel, which was not bad enough for them to suggest anything other than bleeding the brakes. After which the brake was dragging again. Jamming is indeed the issue, it seems. When i was cleaning the sides of the backing plates this afternoon, i noticed that one of the pads could just be lifted out, while the other one i had to lift up with a screwdriver i poked through one of the holes. However, i don't know *why* it jams. Because i did the seal replacement exactly to fix pistons that jam, and the pistons and cylinders were pristine. There are only some marks on the parts of the pistons that aren't gonna enter the cylinder (the bits that were covered in brake dust). I can try one other thing, and that's swapping the left and the right piston. If the other brake pad/cylinder starts jamming, then i'll know that something's wrong with the piston, even though i can't see anything. But then i might as well just get two whole new pistons... LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 19:49 on May 6, 2022 |
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May 6, 2022 19:46
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The pivot is fine, the pin/hole where it connects to the master cylinder's rod is wallowed out. That has some influence, but not that much. I sadly didn't take any pics. I have one picture from before cleaning, and that doesn't show much The seals are from https://www.tourmax.jp , no idea if those are especially good or bad. When i pump the brakes, everything stays exactly the same. Pedal doesn't sink, nothing seeps out. Reservoir isn't overfilled. E: i have no idea if the caliper is aluminium or not. Probably is. But you might be right here. I asked the PO, and he has already opened and cleaned the caliper before, which is about 4 or 5 years ago. I don't know if he also replaced the seals but knowing him he probably did. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 20:18 on May 6, 2022 |
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May 6, 2022 20:05
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Yes, you can get a switched 12v from there that you can turn on a relay with. When in doubt, get your test lamp out!  (Re: my brake woes i'll continue working on them on the weekends, my vacation is over so i have a bit less time. Will take them apart, remove the seals and see how hard/easy the pistons slide and/or rotate) LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 16:09 on May 9, 2022 |
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May 9, 2022 15:47
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There are a few common problems with the 1st gen SV. Carb freezing is really common if you ride in cold wet weather on a first gen SV. This works exactly the same as on small piston engine airplanes. Fuel evaporates, cools down carb body to below the dew point of the surrounding air. If the dew point is low enough and the humidity is high enough, the moisture in the air will turn to ice inside carb and make it run like poo poo. It's especially noticeable if you've been going at steady throttle on the highway for a while and try to overtake. You'll dump some tiny chunks of ice into the carb when you open the throttle valve, and get a bunch of misfires before it picks up. But don't despair! The carb comes with a provision for carb heaters! They're almost like diesel glow plugs but for heating up the carburetor. Suzuki was too cheap to just install them from factory, probably because they assume all bikers only ride in the warm sunshine. They're about 20 euro per piece. They are supposed to operate automatically with a clixon like thermoswitch, but verify that the thermoswitch is also actually installed. Second common problem is the SV325 issue already noted, but i'll write it down anyway. One cylinder cuts out because water and dirt sometimes gets into the front cylinder spark plug hole, because the fender is inadequate. On subsequent SVs there is an extra metal flap/shield to prevent kicked up water and dirt from reaching the spark plug. First make sure the little drain hole on the right side of the bike is not clogged. Second, remove the spark plug lead from the plug, and see if all rubber seals are still there and if they are perfectly dry. In my experience, sealing the whole deal with Holtz Damp Start has worked brilliantly against any moisture ingress. Some people fabricate a little plastic or rubber flap similar to the one on the later SVs.  it's the square bit sticking out from under the radiatior on the picture. Of course, make sure it's not just dirt and gummed up gasoline. I am not aware of any standard problems with the fuel injected SVs. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 13:40 on May 25, 2022 |
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May 25, 2022 13:36
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I can assure you, cornering with moisture in the front spark plug hole is VERY exciting because it'll randomly cut in and out. Lots of clutch slip in corners because if it kicks in, you don't want the full power to get onto the rear wheel. And yeah, above 10 deg C carb freezing shouldn't happen unless you are in very specific conditions (dewpoint almost equal to ambient temperature, relative humidity extremely high)  These conditions are rarely found on the road but are common in the sky. I did have it happen once, when i rode through a very specific climate. I was riding in pleasant weather, towards the Afsluitdijk sea dike. On the dike, with water on both sides of it, temperature was pretty low (12ish degrees) and humidity high enough for dense fog to appear. This caused a few stutters and hesitations, which were completely gone when i reached land again. It doesn't do that in full on rain in warmer weather, so i think moisture ingress can be excluded in this case. I'm always like 'Whoooaaa physics is happening right here in my bike' when it happens. I recommend that whenever you buy a carb'd bike, just get the carb cleaned so you can forget about it for the next decade or so (unless you leave it to gum up in winter, but that's user error). LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 09:39 on May 26, 2022 |
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May 26, 2022 09:22
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 20:58 |
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It's honestly not that big of a deal. I've been ignoring the "problem" for 5 years now because i just don't ride enough in such cold and damp conditions for me to care about screwing in the heaters.
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May 26, 2022 15:37
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